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Forum:Death Strategies
I've recently been playing the game and visiting the use of the Death books. I started by playing a game starting with 11 death books, and of course no skills. My picks for the two uncommon spells were the Black Prayer and the Shadow Demons, and my pick for the rare spell was Wraiths. I don't often start a game with 11 books, but having 11 in one color does have its advantages...reduced costs and starting with extra known spells. The first three or 4 years felt a bit exposed, but once I gained enough mana to summon a wraith it turned around real quick. Almost every normal unit on Arcanus rose as undead at no cost! Not only that, those units reduced unrest at no cost! It only took about a year to capture every town on Arcanus except for the wizard that I didn't banish right away. By that point the spells were being researched at a furious pace and casting them at a reduced cost was a lot more useful than I remembered. That single Wraith that I summoned was able to capture every town on both Planes and I had enough of the undead to garrison the towns without struggling to keep up with food and production. Since then I've played the game with a reduced number of Death books and added some skills. Having Alchemy really made it seem to be a better paced game and having other skills and gaining a few books of other colors added some variety. For most of my playing time I've used Life and some sorcery and nature books with skills. I still prefer Life for the city enchantments...and Torin, but those Wraith and the undead make the Death books a lot more appealing. I won't be groaning and moaning anymore if I draw a death book from an encounter instead of a life book...and if I really want to use Life I can always start with 1 or more. Any thoughts, suggestions, strategies that you would care to share? :I noticed the life steal works way better when the black prayer is in effect (increasing its strength by ), but that because this spell can cost as much as to an 11 book wizard in remote combat, it's best to save it for when there is a lot of fodder for it at once, or particularly dangerous enemies ofc, and just "hope for the best" otherwise. I also find myself wishing wraiths had lower attack and to-hit strength values, and be vulnerable to hexes, so that the life-stealing effect would comprise a larger portion of their damage... though Ravashack is the main sufferer here, since his ranged attack grows too strong for life steal to ever be his main source of damage. :It's too bad we can never acquire Mind Storm with . Aerie the illusionist has it, though. : Speaking of that, one thing I'd like to know is if there are fast ways to obtain a Very Rare Spell. I can only think of two methods right now. A tower might have a very rare spell if its garrison is ridiculous enough. The spell can't be chosen, though, except with save/reload (which is of course lame). Another way might be to just take 3 books of the target color and 8 picks worth of retorts... myrran & artificer perhaps being good choices among them... so that the spellbook has only 20 spells— 10 arcanes and 10 aligned spells, one of which is very rare. That seems really janky. :- Spearman D92-R (talk) 04:03, January 6, 2013 (UTC) Yeah, those are probably the only ways to get the Very Rare spells fast. Although with 11 picks you get the discounted research cost and you don't have to go through researching any Common spells. Towers would be a good place for Very Rare, but if the target color is one that has nodes then the Myrran pick and higher difficulty would work too...if you can conquer those type of Lairs as soon as you'd like. When creating Undead, the resistance seems to be the most important thing. I think I got almost every unit that had resistance below 7, including those that started with 8 before black prayer. I even got a couple of angels after black prayer and darkness. :D Using death magics has advantages, but I still prefer to relax and overwhelm the game with cities and the life enchantments. MysticX2 (talk) 15:01, January 6, 2013 (UTC) Treasures I ran a test on a Lair that gave me two spellbooks. After 80 attempts here are the results: 4 times 1 Retort (2 pick), 11 times 1 Retort (1 pick) and 1 Spellbook, 6 times 2 Retorts (1 pick each), and 59 times 2 Spellbooks. While that isn't conclusive, it seems reasonable to think that you can't get a 2 pick Retort and anything else. When I ran a similar, though smaller, test before when I already had 6 retorts I would get either two spellbooks or two items of varying value. Any suggestions/thoughts? MysticX2 (talk) 13:05, January 8, 2013 (UTC) :Very nice, so you came up on about 80 percent for spellbooks. :The items are replacements for specials that would have been awarded, but can't be for some reason. I did some testing on them but I've forgotten about the details :( Your results suggest that items won't start appearing until you've maxed out to either 13 books or 6 retorts. :The only thing I know for sure is that the artifacts that replace specials have no limit on their mana cost. So it is possible to find the items with mods like Doom and Haste and Regen that are very rarely seen otherwise. Spearman D92-R (talk) 07:24, January 9, 2013 (UTC) ::Actually that smaller test wouldn't have been that useful and I wouldn't want to suggest that you would need the max in either to get items...just that you can't get a spellbook, or retort, if you have the max of them. That smaller test was checking mainly to see if you could get a retort if you already had six and the test suggested that it isn't possible to get a retort if you already have six. Now I can't even say for certain that I always got an item, or an extra if I didn't get a spellbook. I hope that makes sense. I think it is good to know that you have a better chance to find items with rare mods when you have maxed retorts or spellbooks (I think that is what you are saying). It looks like it is going to be one of THOSE days. MysticX2 (talk) 12:07, January 9, 2013 (UTC) :::But you got no artifacts when you recorded 80 results from the new lair, right? Combined with your earlier test it suggests to me that we can only get items when the game tries to award a special after you've hit the limit. In this new test, did you happen to have any books which would have prevented divine/infernal power? Could the lair have awarded white or black books (i.e., not a node)? Spearman D92-R (talk) 18:02, January 9, 2013 (UTC) Ah, in the 80 attempts I did have a death book already but I could have gotten 4 different retorts that are two picks (and I'm doubting you would get a divine and an infernal at the same time). You are right, I didn't get any items as a replacement in those 80 attempts although I had in the smaller previous test (but now I wonder why I didn't get an item and a spellbook in either test). Looking at the results of both tests it does look like you will only get an item if you are maxed out on either or both (skills and books) and the reward would have been the one you are maxed with. I've wondered about some of the late game lairs when I seem to get a lot of two item rewards, but it looks like that is because I maxed skills and spellbooks. Thanks for patiently explaining that. MysticX2 (talk) 18:34, January 9, 2013 (UTC) This would have been a good separate topic. I ran a test when I found an Encounter that gave me a spellbook and an item when I only had 9 spellbooks. I reloaded the save and continued the game until I had 13 spellbooks and 6 retorts. Then I returned to the Encounter that originally gave me a spellbook and an item. In 20 attempts I received two items every time. It had occured to me that normally you get either a spellbook or retort without an item or you get just items. When I found an encounter that gave me both I guessed that there was another trigger in that encounter. I am a bit surprised because I've seen encounters where you get "absolutely nothing". Now I think those encounters that give absolutely nothing may have been a low-ranked spell and if you don't have anything available (as in you have learned all possible low-level spells) then the encounter has nothing to give. Yet in the case of the spellbook it seems to replace that with a retort or an item. Does that sound right? MysticX2 (talk) 18:19, January 13, 2013 (UTC) :Seems unlikely that you'd be ineligible to get another spell. It's probably a prisoner that failed to show (6 heroes?) Spearman D92-R (talk) 06:18, January 14, 2013 (UTC) ::I never thought about a possible prisoner. Well, I already uploaded an image, so I guess I'll use it here. ::I found another unusual combination. :: ::MysticX2 (talk) 21:31, January 17, 2013 (UTC) I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise that a Wizard with Death Books could ge the Divine Power since many of the retorts you get from encounters can be received without meeting the requirements. I often get the Runemaster or Node Mastery Retorts without meeting the requirements to pick them at the beginning of the game. I've also seen those Mastery retorts without having a single book in that realm. MysticX2 (talk) 02:27, January 28, 2013 (UTC)